Gonna take the boat and another couple with us to Tahoe for a couple nights this weekend.Do the grand tour of the lake Friday(never boated there personally ,except for the paddle wheeler a couple of times)...any comments,suggestions,participants would be welcomed,encouraged appreciated...
Be sure to check out Emerald Bay, and Sand Harbor. The Beacon at Camp Richardson has live entertainment, and great Calamari. Sunnybrook has good food, and shuttle service to bouy mooring, as does the marina at Tahoe City, which has several good restraunts. Be aware the wind in the afternoon can make the lake very rough, usually blowing from west to east, so the California side can be the more desireable place to be in the mid afternoon. We do a week there every year, love it.
Some thing to share while you are on the lake:
Mysteries of the deep at Lake Tahoe
- Tom Stienstra San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, July 25, 2004
If you own a small deep-water submarine -- or know some eccentric big-bucks diver who does -- drop me a line. I'd like to borrow the thing.
Once and for all, I'd like to prove or bust the legends or myths that hide in the depths of Lake Tahoe.
The way this idea came about is that I was told another crazy, unverified story this past week about Tahoe's darkest legend of all. As the story goes, a fisherman snagged something for a moment in the deep water just offshore of the South Shore casinos, but it easily broke free. When he reeled up his line, to his shock, on his hook was the top of a human ear.
This might sound crazy, but in the past 25 years, I've heard different versions of this story at least a dozen times. In one account, a fisherman snags up, gets it loose, and reels up a partial hand where two of the fingers had been lopped off Mafia-style. It is a tale passed around called "The Legend of Three-Fingered Tony."
Many have told me that, if you were to take a submarine down 900 feet just off South Shore, you would see hundreds of bodies suspended in the water, preserved perfectly like an underwater wax museum, most wearing clothes from the 1920s, '30s and '40s.
The legend is that this is where the Mafia killers dumped bodies after executions. Some fishermen even call the spot The Grave. At Tahoe, many locals talk as if everybody knows about this, that there are lots of gangsters down there, wearing pinstriped suits, with sneers on their faces and bullet holes in their foreheads.
This makes sense. It has long been verified that Tahoe is a lake that does not give up its dead. That is because the lake is so deep, with an average depth of 989 feet, and so cold, with the temperature hovering just above freezing. So that prevents the creation of gases that would otherwise bloat and float corpses to the surface as in other waters.
This reality brings bizarre possibilities.
Lake Tahoe, as first theorized by the famed geologist Josiah Whitney, was created by a colossal earthquake where a center block of land collapsed between two faults. It might be possible that another massive earthquake here would disrupt the underwater currents and suddenly float all the suspended corpses to the surface at once.
Another possibility is that the bodies will remain submerged for eons of time, just as the woolly mammoths were preserved in glaciers from the last ice age 14,000 years ago.
Even famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau is said to have had a brush with something horrific in a deepwater dive in the mid-1970s. "The world isn't ready for what was down there," is the quote most commonly credited. Cousteau never released any photographs or data from the dive, adding to the mystery and legend.
Some believe Cousteau was talking about a Loch Ness monster-like creature that locals call "Tahoe Tessie." Unlikely. But if I could get a loaner sub, maybe I could find out.
Apart from Tahoe's maximum depth of 1,645 feet, another legend is that there is a hole somewhere on the bottom of the lake that is linked to an underground river system that feeds into Pyramid Lake north of Reno. This would explain how drowning victims at Tahoe have floated up at Pyramid. Or would it? Others say it just means that bodies floated over the spillway at north Tahoe could be carried via the Truckee River to Nevada and Pyramid Lake.
So this past week, I went submarine shopping. I found a personal submarine called the Gemini, "the family submarine," available for $845,000, but it would only go 150 feet deep. Plus, my boss said the paper probably wouldn't spring for it. So I went to EBay to see if a better deal was available. Nope.
A little more searching led to the Phoenix, "a 213-foot personal luxury submarine," but it was priced at $78 million. That's a little on the high side.
A Bay Area engineer, Graham Hawkes of San Anselmo, has invented a glider- like submarine that he says is certified to 1,600 feet deep. This could be ideal for Tahoe, but the price is well over $1 million. So I contacted his agency on Friday and suggested Hawkes take me on a demo dive at Tahoe. Together we could solve the legend of Tahoe.
Or perhaps you own your own submarine as a great little hobby and would like to take part in this expedition. So, like I said, drop me a line -- just not a line off Tahoe's South Shore with a hook on it.
If you plan to dock up anywhere, bring plenty of fenders! The wind tends to kick pretty good in the afternoon. I had to replace 25' of rubrail because of wind.Have fun though, it's a beautiful lake.
I will be up there in the Keys Friday, Saturday and Sunday. As mentioned above, Emerald Bay and Sand Harbor are two of the most beautiful places in the country. I would try to hit Sand Harbor earlier in the day and Emerald Bay later on. I made the mistake of staying at Sand Harbor until 4 p.m. and then trying to cross the lake to get back to the Keys...big mistake. The wind kicked up and in the center of lake it was like 5'-6' chop not swells. I had the wind knocked out of me twice and my wife was in tears fearing for her life. And this was in a 27' boat.
The Beacon and Sunnyside are cool places to stop and eat and drink. The Beacons Rum Runners are second to none. Let me know if you want to hook-up up there or just look for my big sausage fest boat (I'll be there for a bachelor party) See ya, Greg
I agree, Sunnyside is way cool.
Along with
-sand harbor
-Emerald bay is a must
-Gar Woods for lunch or dinner up in Carnelian Bay
-Tahoe Boat Company for some nostalgia
We were there last week at the Keys and had a great time-not too many folks.
Watch out for the fuel price at the Marina it was over $5.00 per gal so you may want to fill up right when you come into town at the intersection at 89.
Also, be carefull if you leave your trailer next to the Marina on the street, over 72 hours, they will ticket and impound if you don't move.
Have a great time
here are some pics from last week
Emerald Bay
Ballon rides in the early a.m. around 7:30-8 taken by a friend before the winds pick up-thanks JF :rollside:
East side in Nevada
paddle wheel in Emerald Bay...watch your speed limit :yuk:
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